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oddsight

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Posts posted by oddsight

    Antlion pheremones?

    in Everything Else

    Posted · Edited by oddsight

    So I too did the google, it looks like antlions look like dragonflies irl.

    From your post you say you like spicy things and that antlion pheromones is a food? The word Pheromone throws my off, its sounds like a powder you'd purchase from one of those old smelly places in china town. I would not buy homeopathic stuff online period. If you are ordering from a reputable online company and this food is a non-perishable, you should be fine. I'm assuming this is a kind of expensive hot-sauce and you are not buying this from a physical store?

    Something to ask yourself is, do you trust this company to not screw you over with selling you computer equipment? (switch-out / shipped wrong parts or equipment is dented / mangled) If you don't trust them, then don't buy food from them. You could end up with a bottle of expired army-ant pheromones and the next thing you know all the army-ants think you're flirting with them and then they make you their ant queen and you can train them to get things from the refrigerator like beer but not hotsauce cause thats not what they sent you...

    you know, stuff like that

    So I love spicy stuff and in September will more than likely be buying the Antlion Pheremones. But like I am kind of a little leery buying a food product form a place that mainly sells computer equipment. Anyone tried it and like it and such? What are your thoughts?

    Thanks

    **edit**

    Ok, so let me ask you would you be okay with buying one lionant thing then throwing it away if it was horrible? That would be the way I approach this situation.

    Arduino chess robotic arm

    in Applications & Coding

    Posted · Edited by oddsight

    This reminds me of an MIT lecture that a guy did on goal trees. He demo'ed a simple ai program with stacking boxes. (

    ) Something like this may work if the arm controller calculates the kinematics.(it would need to be tailored specifically to the arm and would need to clear the tops of the chess pieces) You'd also need the computer to know where the different chess pieces are after you (the human) moves them. You could try and do something with cv but it may be easier to program around the problem by using magnetic switches under each square on the board and small magnets on the bottom of each chess piece. You could then allow the computer to track what piece was picked up and where you placed it. You may run into a problem with this setup with that move where you swap around the king and the rook but you could code in specific logic for recognizing that scenario.

    Honestly if I were doing this, I'd work on building a "smart" chess board first, building the physical robotic arm second, the controlling mechanism that take simple "a1 to a7" chess movement commands third, then finding / borrowing chess logic from somewhere.

    Just an opinion, you can do what ever suits your fancy.

    ^_^

    *edit*

    oh and the hand too, not sure the best way to do the grabber. the image you show has what looks like a suction cup thing. good for apple, bad for chess piece.

    Library to track wi-fi sources (cell phones) (wardrive reversed)

    in Questions

    Posted

    Hello all,

    I've been looking for a way to setup a few wifi antenas in listening mode, capture "events" with Kismet then compile the information to give me with some idea of how many wifi devices were in the area as well as have some indication of their locations.

    To to that I expect the algorithm to do pretty much the reverse of a Wardrive. I imanine 3 or more wifi devices in listening mode. Each one of them with a GPS location. They would, using Kismet, log MAC addresses, with power level and time stamp. An algorithm would get the 3 GPS locations, get each of the MAC addresses, try to match time stamps and interpolate/triangulate positions. I've seen results of such algorithms that track crowds as well as individuals. However, I haven't been able to find a library that does that.

    I hope there are some knowledgeable folks out there who know where should I be looking.

    well I'm not really sure if what I'm about to suggest is even possible but you could set up 3 or 4 war-drive (war-camping?) stations and workout a person's location from the overlap. You wouldn't be able to tie them directly to a GPS location but you might be able to get an approximation.

    I made a pretty picture:

    war-camping.png

    Like I said no GPS coords and there would be blind spots for sure. You may have to calibrate the areas where coverage overlaps by physically walking the target areas and tracking yourself. Even then, you may not have very accurate readings.

    I think you could probably figure something out, it would just take a lot of time, money and effort. Or I could be completely wrong - I honestly don't know.

    noob laptop & OS suggestions

    in Questions

    Posted

    As far as OS goes, I really want to learn linux. There are a ton of different versions though, I'm still trying to figure out what all the differences are between them. Linux.com has a bunch of information but It's not clear what would be the best for coding / fooling around with network stuff. I'm always grateful for suggestions.

    This laptop would be purely for coding, hacking around, maybe doing stuff with arduino or a raspberry pi. I do want something portable so laptop is a definite yes. I'd like something that I can take to the park, library or a coding group meetup, etc.

    I don't know anything about hardware, what are your thoughts on a refurbished 15 inch Dell Inspiron with 2GH i7 processor, 16gb ram and 1TB hard drive? I found one for just under $700 USD. It's actually a little more than I have saved up but I think I can make it work money wise.

    Should I pass and continue to save? I still have my old apple desktop in the mean time...

    Introduce yourself

    in Everything Else

    Posted

    At first I wrote a bunch of smart@$$ answers but I decided to delete them and only post the authentic ones.

    Favourite game: It's a tie between Deus-Ex and minecraft
    Nationality: USA

    Favourite book: Snow Crash

    Favourite movie: Ghost in the Shell (1995 version)
    Favourite Comedian: Stephen Colbert
    Other hobbies: Art, education/learning, Attempting to be an entrepreneur, trying to get into arduino stuff

    Occupation: ecommerce marketing - but trying to get into IT stuff.

    • Upvote 1

    noob laptop & OS suggestions

    in Questions

    Posted

    So I'm a huge noob when it comes to most IT stuff and I need some help with starter laptop suggestions and OS'es to learn and use. I want to learn stuff but everyone ive asked is all over the board from an apple airbook to cheapy Acer or chrome book. I've got an older refurbished imac desktop but its not mobile (well it is, I just look like a douche carrying it to coffee shops or meetup groups). Honestly I don't know too many IT people IRL, I have an art/design background. I don't even really know what I want to learn. I just know that I want to learn. Please advise me on where to start with laptops and OS'es.

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